INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

(ROLE OF COMMUNITY)

Mrs. Aseem Mohan (Assistant Professor, CCE, Noida)

Inclusion is an educational approach and philosophy that provides all students with community membership and greater opportunities for academic and social achievement.  Inclusion is about making sure that each and every student feels welcome and that their unique needs and learning styles are attended to and valued. 
Inclusion has two sub-types: the first is sometimes called regular inclusion or partial inclusion, and the other is full inclusion.

"Inclusive practice" is not always inclusive but is a form of integration. For example, students with special needs are educated in regular classes for nearly all of the day, or at least for more than half of the day. Whenever possible, the students receive any additional help or special instruction in the general classroom, and the student is treated like a full member of the class. However, most specialized services are provided outside a regular classroom, particularly if these services require special equipment or might be disruptive to the rest of the class (such as speech therapy), and students are pulled out of the regular classroom for these services. In this case, the student occasionally leaves the regular classroom to attend smaller, more intensive instructional sessions in a resource room, or to receive other related services, such as speech and language therapy, occupational and/or physical therapy, and social work This approach can be very similar to many mainstreaming practices, and may differ in little more than the educational ideals behind it.

In the "full inclusion" setting, the students with special needs are always educated alongside students without special needs, as the first and desired option while maintaining appropriate supports and services. Some educators say this might be more effective for the students with special needs. At the extreme, full inclusion is the integration of all students, even those that require the most substantial educational and behavioral supports and services to be successful in regular classes and the elimination of special, segregated special education classes. Special education is considered a service, not a place and those services are integrated into the daily routines and classroom structure, environment, curriculum and strategies and brought to the student, instead of removing the student to meet his or her individual needs. However, this approach to full inclusion is somewhat controversial, and it is not widely understood or applied to date. Much more commonly, local educational agencies provide a variety of settings, from special classrooms to mainstreaming to inclusion, and assign students to the system that seems most likely to help the student achieve his or her individual educational goals. Students with mild or moderate disabilities, as well as disabilities that do not affect academic achievement, such as using wheelchair, are most likely to be fully included. However, students with all types of disabilities from all the different disability categories have been successfully included in general education classes, working and achieving their individual educational goals in regular school environments and activities.

Inclusive Education means that schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional and linguistic or other conditions. This should include disabled and gifted children, street and working children, children from remote population, children from linguistic, ethnic or cultural minorities and children from other disadvantage or marginalized areas or groups.

Role of Community

Inclusive Education starts with the community. The community must believe in the Inclusive Education philosophy. While the educators may be willing to provide inclusive education, the general public must also view it as their responsibility. It must become a norm of society.

Here we first discuss objectives & then the role of community in inclusive education.
The main objectives of inclusive education program are:-

1. To ensure that no child is denied admission in mainstream education.
2. To ensure that every child would have the right to access an aanganwadi and school and no child would be turned back on the ground of disability.
3. To ensure that mainstream and specialist training institutions serving persons with disabilities, in the government or in the non government sector, facilitate the growth of a cadre of teachers trained to work within the principles of inclusion.
4. To facilitate access of girls with disabilities and disabled students from rural and remote areas to government hostels.
5. To provide for home based learning for persons with severe, multiple and intellectual disability.
6. To promote distance education for those who require an individualized pace of learning.
7. To emphasize job-training and job oriented vocational training, and
8. To promote an understanding of the paradigm shift from charity to development through a massive awareness, motivation and sensitization campaign.

1. Role of family

- The parents/ family are the true source of knowing needs, strengths and limitations of their children with mild or severe disabilities.

- Parents/family should be fully aware of rights of their child to have an inclusive education.

- Parents/ family should encourage the child to participate in activities where he can meet children of different abilities.

- Children should be encouraged by them to develop friendship with classmates & other neighborhood children.

- Parents/family can discuss their goals, expectations and preferences for a child with their teacher, therapists etc., before going to school and deciding upon the education plan for them.

- Parent/family can take help to bring in an expert to share information about benefits of inclusive education.

2. Role of school

Special Educational Need

There is special need in each school; they have some seats of these kinds of students and psychologists for segregation & grouped process of non-disabled and disabled students. Besides this, doctors, therapists and special training with our teaching training courses are required. School should be full of these services and resources.

Teachers use a number of techniques to help in building classroom:

• Using game designed to build community.
• Involving students in solving problems.
• Sharing songs and books that teach community.
• Openly dealing with individual difference by discussion.
• Assigning classroom jobs that build community.
• Teaching students to look for ways to help each other.
• Utilizing physical therapy equipment such as standing frames so students who typically use wheelchairs can stand when the other students are standing and more actively participate in activities.
• Encouraging students to take the role of teacher and deliver instruction (e.g. read a portion of a book to a student with severe disabilities)

Focusing on the Strength of a student with special needs.

Selection of students for inclusion in classroom/school Educators generally say that some students with special needs are not good candidates for inclusion. Selection demands fundamental requirements. First, being included requires that the student is able to attend school. School has a duty to provide a safe environment to all students and staff. Inclusion needs to be appropriate to the child’s unique needs. The students that are most commonly included are those with physical disabilities that have no or little effect on their academic work. Educationists say that regular inclusion but not full inclusion is a reasonable approach for significant majority of students with special needs. He also says that some students, notably those with severe autism spectrum disorders or mental retardation as a well as many who are deaf or have multiple disabilities.

3. Inclusive Education and Equity

If the right to education for all is to become a reality, we must ensure that all learners have access to quality education that meets basic learning needs and enriches lives. Still, today, millions of children, youth and adults continue to experience exclusion within and from education around the world. The UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960) and other international human rights treaties prohibit any exclusion from or limitation to educational opportunities on the bases of socially ascribed or perceived differences, such as sex, ethnic origin, language, religion, nationality, social origin, economic condition, ability, etc. Education is not simply about making schools available for those who are already able to access them. It is about being proactive in identifying the barriers and obstacles learners encounter in attempting to access opportunities for quality education, as well as in removing those barriers and obstacles that lead to exclusion.

UNESCO works with governments and partners to address exclusion from and inequality in educational opportunities.

The ministry for human resource development is currently in the process of developing a comprehensive action plan on the inclusion in education of children and youth with disabilities. The different departments at the central level are in the process of developing their work plans. Roles and responsibilities for implementing agencies and their partners, the roles of NGOs, parents groups are also being drafted.

CONCLUSION

Inclusive education reflects values, ethos and culture of a state education system committed to enhancing equitable educational opportunities and improved outcomes for all students, recognizing roles education can play in redressing social disadvantage and social injustice.

Inclusive education requires that school is supportive and engaging places for all students, teachers and members of school community. It is about building communities that value, celebrate and respond positively to diversity. It is supported by collaborative relationship with families’ communities and governments. It is about shaping the society in which we live and type of society to which we aspire.

Children, who learn together, learn to live together!